Since their introduction, printers have become very popular peripherals for computers. One type of printer is the laser printer. In a laser printer, a laser scans an image onto a charged drum, which is coated with toner where the laser printer scanned the image. The image is developed with the toner, and is transferred to the media. A fuser, generally located in the printer, then fuses the toner permanently to the media. Laser printers, as well as other types of printers, are commonly available in both black-and-white models and color models.
There are typically two speed ratings associated with laser printers in particular. The first rating is the number of pages per minute (PPM) the printer can print once it has warmed up. The PPM rating generally depends on the speed with which a printer can decode a provided print job for printing, as well as the speed at which the various components within the printer can operate. The second rating is the first-page out (FPO) time. The FPO rating indicates how long it takes for a printer to complete and eject the first printed page of a print job once the printer has received the print job.
The FPO rating for a laser printer largely depends on the length of time it takes to sufficiently heat the fuser so that it can fuse the toner to the media. If the fuser is not warm enough, then the toner may not properly adhere to the media. The toner may easily rub or flake off the media, or print quality may decrease. A laser printer that is able to quickly output printed media, but which has a large FPO time, may nevertheless be perceived as slow by users.
Therefore, manufacturers of laser printers have attempted to decrease the FPO time as much as possible. However, the FPO time for a given laser printer does not stay constant over time. As the printer ages, for instance, the fusers that permanently affix the applied toner to media may require longer lengths of time to heat up sufficiently to operate properly. Different types of toners may require different temperatures for permanent affixation to media.
If the FPO time for a printer is artificially set too short, the result can be that the toner does not affix permanently to the media. That is, the toner may subsequently rub off the page when touched by the user. Such a laser printer may otherwise be in good operating condition, but users may nevertheless believe that the printer is malfunctioning and in need of service or replacement, due to the inability of the printer to permanently affix toner to the first page of media.
An image-formation device of an embodiment of the invention includes an image-formation mechanism and a controller. The image-formation mechanism is capable of forming images on media. The controller is capable of dynamically determining a first-page out (FPO) time for the image-formation mechanism based on at least changing characteristics of the image-formation mechanism.